


This is Gonna Hurt

by arrafrost



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Barebacking, Comfort Sex, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 07:43:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7836064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrafrost/pseuds/arrafrost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone experiences grief differently, some people stress bake, others bury themselves in work, some take comfort in the company and body of a person they trust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Gonna Hurt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashinan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashinan/gifts).



_Electricity bowing to nature_  
_Mind bowing to heartbeat_  
_This is gonna hurt_  
_Bowing to I love you_  
_I still love you_

_._

The roar of the lion echoed through the space the others glided through. Everyone stopped, the universe pressing pause on something that was never meant to happen. Something that couldn’t happen.

Adrenalin, rage, grief all took over and two lions plowed through the enemies, reducing them to floating debris before diving after the other two lions who had followed the fallen to a small planet below them.

Lance jumped out of Blue, racing over the rocky terrain, tripping over his feet with the need to get there in time. To prove himself wrong. To verify that everything was going to be okay.

Yet there he was. Eyes blank and body limp, laying on the ground where Hunk and Pidge had dragged him out of his lion. It wasn’t possible.

“Keith…” Lance murmured, putting his hand on his shoulder.

Keith shrugged his shoulder violently to dislodge Lance’s hand, his entire body was shaking. “It’s not real. Shiro- he can’t leave- he can’t leave us. He can’t-”

The team cringed as Keith shouted, his voice cracking as the tears rolled down his cheeks. Lance clenched his fists, staring down at Shiro’s lifeless body. At Hunk pulling Pidge into his arms as she cried. Pidge hadn’t looked up once since they landed. Hunk was holding onto Pidge like a lifeline. Keith was on the ground now, hands on Shiro feeling for a pulse that was never going to beat.

Lance stood there. Frozen. He didn’t know what they were going to do.

“We should bury him…” Lance surprised himself more than the others who stared up at him, eyes wide and confused.

“We- he’s not!”

“Keith, he is.”

“No!”

“We need to-”

“NO!”

“I can…” Pidge started, voice weak enough that she needed to take a breath before starting over. All eyes were on her. “I can try to bring him back.”

Lance shook his head, “Pidge you can’t-”

“I can try! With all of his implants and the alien tech I can at least do something. Some research. It’s possible that they’ve managed to revive their troops before so why can’t we do the same?”

“That’s cheating.”

“Who cares?” Keith shouted, getting up right in Lance’s face. “This isn’t a game Lance!”

“No,” Lance stated calmly. “It isn’t.”

“Lance is right…” Hunk muttered, almost inaudibly. Pidge wiggled out of his arms, an incredulous look on her face. “We should bury him. Experimenting on him, hoping to do the impossible. It’s not what he deserves.”

“He deserves to be alive!”

“I know he does. But-”

“Don’t you say it!” Keith growled.

“Keith,” Lance placed his hands on Keith’s arms, gripping him tightly. “He’s gone.”

“Fuck you!” Keith punched Lance in the stomach and the other paladins rose immediately but Lance shook his head, taking another punch with a silent cringe. If this was what Keith needed right now, Lance would allow it.

“Fight me back.”

“No.” Lance held him tighter and Keith continued punching him, softer with each throw, until he slammed his forehead into Lance’s chest, sobbing loudly.

Lance wrapped his arms around Keith’s body and looked up at Hunk and Pidge. “Let’s get to work.”

.  
.

The days following Shiro’s death were as miserable as one could expect. Allura fell to the ground in disbelief when they returned, Coran tried his best to console everyone but the feat was impossible. There was nothing to be done except grieve.

Hunk spent most of his time in the kitchen, stress baking and Coran was more than willing to find him all the ingredients he requested. Pidge refused to drop the idea of bringing Shiro back despite having buried him on that planet and dove directly into research, finding comfort in the bright screens of the consoles that hummed in the dark rooms.

Keith locked himself in the training room most days, recklessly fighting anything the simulator would throw at him. He fought until his body and mind were beyond exhausted. Coran found him passed out in the room multiple times, always bringing him food that he hoped he would eat. Thankfully the plate was always empty when he came back to return it but Keith was back up, fighting until his muscles cried as much as he did at night.

Lance listlessly wandered the castle, mind blank, eyes unfocused. He walked until his legs started to wobble under him and then he jumped into Blue and let her do the walking for him. They ran over the planet until there was nothing left to see, charting a map the whole time to give himself something to do. Most nights Lance fell asleep to Blue’s comforting purr all around him.

They had both lost someone that day. The other lions had to be feeling it as well. The entire team had fallen apart and there was nothing they could do to bring their teammates back. But being alone couldn’t be the answer. Lance felt comfort when he was with Blue, surely the team would feel better being together, supporting one another as they moved forward.

The next morning Lance and Blue made their way back to the castle where Lance went to each lion, sitting with them a moment and acknowledging the hurt they felt at losing their alpha. Lance knew the feeling.

He went to Keith’s room with the express purpose of bringing the team together, of gathering them up into a meeting where they could huddle together, take comfort in one another. Maybe watch a movie and learn how to smile again. Anything to make the black hole in the pit of Lance’s stomach, sucking all his energy and warmth out of him, to go away.

Knocking didn’t do him any good, Keith wouldn’t get up to answer him. So Lance walked in and leaned against the wall when the door closed behind him. Keith wasn’t sleeping. He was sitting on the bed, legs pulled up to his chest, staring directly at Lance.

“Hey…”

Keith looked away, shrugging his shoulder. “Hi.”

“I don’t think I remember how to feel…” Lance admitted. It was the reason why he couldn’t stay still. He was looking for the ability to laugh again, to feel happy, to remember what it was like when joy was a thing. He was numb and he was chasing the ability to feel anything again.

“I feel…” Keith sighed, rocking his head harder than he needed to against the wall next to his bed. Lance understood.

“It hurts.”

“Yeah.”

Silence spread out between them. Lance let his shoulder blades dig into the wall, taking a note from Keith’s book. But it wasn’t what he wanted to feel. He wasn’t the type to find comfort in pain, although Keith didn’t appear to have found any comfort judging from how bloody and bruised his knuckles were. He could only imagine what the rest of his body looked like if he had been sparring this whole time.

“Why are you here?” Keith glanced up, eyes connecting with Lance’s once more.

“I wanted to feel something,” Lance shrugged. “Company seemed like a better idea than slamming my head through a wall.”

Keith stared at him, maybe in agreement, maybe in contempt if he thought Lance was judging him from taking his aggression out on a simulator that kicked his ass. But Keith patted the bed in front of him, inviting Lance to sit down.

He kicked off the wall, slowly walking over until he flopped down on the bed, sitting cross legged in front of Keith. Lance held his hands out, palms up, and looked Keith in the eyes.

It only took a moment for Keith to sigh and place his hands in Lance’s. He shivered as Lance’s fingers gently brushed his, careful of the cuts on his knuckles and the dried blood he had yet to wash off.

“They’re going to get infected if you don’t take care of them.”

Keith shrugged.

“That’s not the answer.”

“What is?” Keith growled, anger dripping into his voice.

“I don’t know,” Lance admitted sadly. He didn’t have any answers for either of them. This wasn’t something they had been prepared for. Which was insane because they were soldiers fighting a war that they hadn’t signed up for, fighting something so much larger and greater than them. They came here completely unprepared for anything, let alone the death of their leader. How were they meant to deal with it? Lance had no idea.

“Lance?” Keith asked suddenly and Lance looked up from Keith’s injured hands.

“Yeah?”

“Did you literally put your head through a wall?”

“No?”

Keith reached up and brushed his fingers over Lance’s forehead. They came away with a hint of blood.

“Oh.”

Keith raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t remember doing that,” Lance murmured, fingers absently tracing along Keith’s other hand. Keith mimicked his movements over Lance’s forehead before he pulled away and Lance felt empty again.

He listened as Keith dug through the drawers in his bathroom before coming back with bandages and a wet cloth. He scooted closer to Lance this time, almost sitting in his lap when he climbed back onto the bed. Lance held still, almost didn’t breath as Keith wiped away the blood from Lance’s forehead and placed a bandage there. The heat from his fingertips sending sparks of warmth through his cold body.

Lance’s breath was shaky when Keith pulled away and put the cloth in Lance’s hands. He looked from purple eyes to bloody hands and got to work, cleaning away the dried blood from Keith’s hands. He was gentle, tending to the wounds and making sure he wasn’t the cause of the pain that Keith had found to numb his sorrow. Torturing himself wasn’t the answer, they both needed to feel something, to do something productive, to not feel like they were trapped in the moment when they landed on that planet and found the impossible.

Lance stared straight into Keith’s eyes as he wrapped the bandages around his hands, looping around the fingers, being extra careful around his knuckles. Lance let his fingertips brush down Keith’s arm as he secured the bandage around his wrist and Keith surged forward.

It happened too fast but Lance wasn’t surprised as Keith’s mouth pressed urgently against his own. He pressed back, not able to match Keith’s aggression or desperation. He only wanted to calm it, to bring Keith down to a place that wasn’t so frantic. He gently pushed Keith back on the bed and was thankful he went willingly, that he wasn’t going to push back and turn this into a fight. Keith continued kissing him with a little more teeth than Lance was used to, dug his fingers into Lance’s back with more force than Lance wanted, but the tension in body slowly dissipated as Lance settled above him, lining their bodies up. Lance rolled his hips softly, kissing the moan off Keith’s lips.

“Do you want to do this?” Lance pulled back as far as Keith allowed him to in that fierce grip.

Keith pursed his lips together at the same time he dragged Lance back down, arms wrapping around his shoulders. “Yeah, yeah I want this.”

“Okay, we’ll take it slow.”

Keith shook his head, “I don’t want slow.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Keith gritted his teeth, “That’s all I can feel.”

Lance kissed his neck, nipping gently with his teeth and savoring the gasp it brought to Keith’s lips. “Maybe I can fix that.”

“And what do you get out of this?”

“I get to feel again too. Hopefully.”

“You didn’t feel that?” Keith ran his fingers over the bandage on Lance’s forehead.

Lance shook his head. “Pain doesn’t do it for me, I guess.”

Keith sighed, tension seeping out of his shoulders as Lance continued to kiss his way down his neck to his collarbone. “Okay… we’ll do it your way.”

Lance smiled against Keith’s skin, “Wow. It’s already working.”

Keith rolled his eyes but Lance was starting to feel again, the warmth of Keith’s body beneath his, the rush that each sound he made going straight through him. The desire to make him move more, make him moan louder, it took the forefront of Lance’s mind and he finally felt distracted from the hopelessness eating away at him from the inside.

He stripped Keith slowly, fingers gliding over his skin with each and every moment. As he suspected, his body was riddled with bruises. Lance kissed each one as a reminder that he needed to take care of himself. That Lance was here if he needed to be taken care of.

By the time Lance removed Keith’s pants, Keith was relaxed and sighing on his bed. He almost felt bad for interrupting the soothing atmosphere when opened his mouth around Keith’s cock and sucked him deep into his mouth.

“Oh fuck!” Keith shouted, hands gripping the sheets of the bed. No longer in the daze that Lance’s gentle care had placed him under. He lifted his hips enough that Lance had to hold him down.

Lance’s tongue worked its way around Keith’s girth before sucking him even further down his throat. The moan he received for his efforts of deepthroating evoked a feeling that Lance desperately wanted to experience again. He doubled his efforts, using one hand to hold Keith’s frantically moving hips down and his other to stroke him fast and a little harder than he might have before. Keith came down his throat with a shout and Lance swallowed every drop. His skin buzzed the longer Keith moaned and he found that Keith liked to have his oversensitive cock sucked until it hurt. Which was why he pulled off despite the satisfaction it brought the both of them.

Instead Lance moved his mouth lower and reveled in the Keith’s gasp and the unexpected rocking of his hips.

“Lance…”

“Is this okay?”

Keith moaned at the feeling of Lance’s tongue running over his hole. “It’s okay if you’re okay doing it.”

Lance’s answer was to shove his tongue inside, holding Keith’s cheeks open and still as he tried to thrust down onto his face. Now that was an image that brought Lance to life, having Keith sit on his face while he ate his ass. It made Lance work even harder, sloppier, fingers gripping Keith’s ass a bit too hard - much to Keith’s liking.

“Here,” Keith’s body moving was more of a hint to Lance to look up than Keith’s voice was but he was presented with a tube of lube that Keith had pulled out from the drawer next to his bed. “I want to you fuck me.”

It was Lance’s turn to moan now. “Are you-”

“I’m sure.” Keith assured him, grabbing one of Lance’s wrists and squeezing lube onto his fingers.

Lance did as he was asked, pushing his fingers into Keith and thrusting them into him hard enough to make Keith moan and rock down onto them.

“Thought you wanted to be gentle.”

“Said I wasn’t going to hurt you. This isn’t hurting you is it? Or do you want me to slow down?”

Keith shook his head immediately, “No no, don’t stop.”

Lance responded by adding a third finger, determined to make Keith scream with pleasure. But Lance barely had to do any of the work with Keith rocking down onto his hand as frantically as he was.

“Come on,” Keith growled after several minutes of fingerfucking. “I’m ready please.”

“Hmm,” Lance hummed to himself, leaning down to lick around his fingers before adding his tongue to his hole.

“Oh fuck… Lance.”

“Yeah,” Lance grinned, pulling away. “You seem stretched enough.”

“You’re the worst,” Keith huffed. It was almost a laugh and Lance was proud of it.

“I try.”

“Can you just-” Keith whimpered when Lance withdrew his fingers, making Lance smile ever so slightly as he took his own pants off. This had definitely been a good idea.

“You’re taking too long,” Keith was practically pouting as he watched Lance spread lube over his cock.

“Well excuse me if I was too busy pleasuring someone else.”

“I mean if that’s what you want to call it…”

Lance gaped comically, “Oh so that’s how it’s gonna be.”

Keith shrugged and Lance could see a smile starting to form at the corner of his lips.

“Maybe I should just take this and go-” Lance announced, cock in hand, as he started to stand up on the bed only to be hauled back down by Keith’s legs wrapping around his waist. “Hah! Or I could stay and put this to good use.”

“Good idea.”

And it was. Lance entire body shuddered as he pushed into the warmth of Keith’s embrace. Keith’s foot hooking behind his ass to pull him deep inside him. It was almost overwhelming, the sensations flowing through parts of Lance he had forgotten about. Even if this was temporary, Lance wanted to feel more.

He pulled out, thrusting back in hard enough to rock the mattress. Keith yelped and grabbed Lance’s arms, rolling his hips to the rhythm that Lance was setting. It was wild and restless as they moved together, striving to be closer, desperate to forget why they were here and to focus on the heat between them.

Lance thrusts grew steadily harder until it only took a single stroke to Keith’s cock for him to come, muscles squeezing tightly around Lance. A few more thrusts and Lance doubled over, spilling inside Keith as he gasped for breath above him.

Keith grabbed Lance when he tried to pull away, holding him close as he moaned at the sensation of Lance filling him up. It was messy when he finally let Lance move away and despite being entirely reckless, it was exactly what he wanted to feel.

“Wow…” Lance flopped down on the bed beside Keith, fingers roaming back to Keith’s hole to feel the wetness dripping down his thighs.

Keith gasped, instinctively rocking his hips. He reached down and pushed Lance’s fingers back into him, plugging him up before he curled closer to Lance.

Lance wrapped his other arm around Keith, pressing a kiss onto his forehead. He watched Keith until his breathing evened out before he allowed himself the chance to join him and closed his own eyes.

.  
.

Lance woke up hours later to an empty bed. Groggily he sat up, looking around the room until he spotted Keith curled up on the floor next to the bathroom door. “Keith?”

“I think you should go…”

“What?”

“This was a mistake.”

Lance felt a tremor flow through his body. It made the numbness of yesterday seem like a welcoming embrace. “Keith…”

Keith shook his head, closing his eyes. He refused to look at him and Lance couldn’t bare it. He stood up, not bothering to find his pants, and walked over to where Keith was sitting.

When he knelt down in front of him, Keith looked up with tears in his eyes. “You can’t replace him.”

Lance’s entire body flashed from hot to cold.

“Please leave.”

.

.

Fight or flight response led Lance to the middle of nowhere space, sitting in Blue wearing pants that he didn’t remember putting on. All he could remember was the look on Keith’s face and the guilt in his eyes.

Lance had no idea.

He should have known.

The castle was quiet, everyone caught up in their own grief to notice one of the paladins had gone missing.

He flew around with Blue purring lowly around him, trying to comfort him in the pain that had only doubled since last night, and nothing seemed to work. His idea had failed. It had made everything worse for two people. There was no way he could go back to that but he had nowhere else to go. Going back would only make it worse but leaving the team forever… that wouldn’t solve anything.

The only thing he could do… was fix things. The right way.

Lance squared his jaw and took over the controls. Blue was instantly alert and growling along with him, supporting any idea he was going to throw at her. He knew he could count on her.

.

.

The team had been surprised when Lance called from out in space and told everyone to meet him in the infirmary when he returned. But nothing matched the surprise on their faces when he walked in. His face was surely bleeding, bruises on his hands, armor falling off his body. He dumped all the alien tech he had stolen onto the floor in front of Pidge.

“Lance where did you get this?”

“I took it.”

“You can’t be-”

“Come help me,” Lance gestured to Hunk as he headed back outside.

Pidge narrowed her eyes, “You have more?”

Lance didn’t answer and the three other paladins looked at each other in confusion before Hunk followed Lance out the door. They returned several minutes later carrying what looked like a Galra healing pod.

“Shiro!” Keith shouted, running up to the pod. “What are you doing Lance?”

Lance didn’t respond. He and Hunk brought the pod over to where Allura was standing and told her to make it work. She didn’t ask questions or insist that it wasn’t going to work, she looked to Coran and asked him to assist her.

“Lance what are you-”

Lance turned to Pidge, gesturing at the tech scattered on the ground. “Fix this. Use this and bring him back.”

Pidge was stunned for a moment before she nodded and got to work.

Lance turned to Keith, his expression neutral compared to Keith’s. “I’m going to make this right.”

And somehow, Lance did. He was the first to admit he was wrong about burying Shiro, how sorry he was for giving up immediately when they were out here in a world of unbelievable advancement. The team chastised him for being reckless enough to take on the enemy by himself and steal the amount of equipment that he had before throwing him into a healing pod as well, since he all but fainted in front of them after handing the tech over to Pidge. But in the end, it worked. Somehow Shiro’s heart started beating again and while he was still unconscious… he was alive and they all had hope that he would wake up.

Everyone was together again, the whole team taking comfort in each other’s company. Shiro brought them together, like always. They all remembered how to smile and Lance felt he could laugh again. As long as he was around everyone, he could be happy again.

The day that Shiro woke up, they celebrated and hugged and cried. It was overwhelming to say the least. They had their leader back, their friend, they would be able to move on from this and go back to the things were before.

“Hey Lance…” Keith said to him after they all agreed to get some sleep after the exciting day they had. “Um… thanks for going back. This is all you.”

Lance nodded, a sad smile spreading over his lips. “I hope you two are happy together. You deserve it.”

Keith opened his mouth to speak but Lance shook his head, turning away from him. “Good night buddy, tell Shiro not to sleep too hard, we don’t want to lose him again.”

“I… yeah. Good night, Lance.”

Lance saluted him without looking back as he walked down the hall toward his bedroom. This was how it was meant to be. Everything could go back to the way things were… and everyone could be happy again.

_._

_I think of happy when I think of you_  
_So wherever you are I hope you’re happy_  
_I really do_

**Author's Note:**

> the poem at the beginning and end is Andrea Gibson - Photograph
> 
> also I AM SO SORRY! This was a product of me teasing Andy by telling her I was gonna kill (yet another) character and she said no, Shiro shouldn't die he should come back to life... so obviously I had to make Keith and Shiro a thing and make it heartbreaking for Lance when Shiro comes back because BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR ANDY I'M SORRY NOT SORRY


End file.
